V.1 Fall 2023, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Fall 2023 issue contains articles on bubbles, a performance at AS220 "Belated Avowal" by RISD MFA student Cat Ashley, sleeping and dreaming, interviews of RISD students, a critical review of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, movement experiments, a Jake Shore show at Providence student gallery Ladybug Providence, and George Orwell's book "Why I Write," along with creative writing on a variety of topics.

Balanced Blended Space: Proposing A Universal Theoretical Framework For Combinative Reality, David Smith, Frederick Bianchi

Publications and Research

In today's fragmented societies, a unified framework for communication and collaboration across different realities is crucial. We introduce Balanced Blended Space (BBS) as a framework for describing combinative reality, encompassing virtual, physical, and conceptual realms, all intrinsically connected. Interactions within these environments shape our perceptual space. This paper outlines key axiomatic assumptions, criteria for a universal framework, and fundamental terminology. We identify deep symmetries enabling the BBS framework, including Cognitive and Computational Symmetry, Physical and Virtual Symmetry, Mediation Pathway Symmetry, Space-Time Symmetry, and Sensory Symmetry. We propose tests to determine its viability, emphasizing virtual intelligence as a collaborative partner. We …

El Vínculo Entre El Arte, La Política Y El Espacio Público: Una Investigación De Colectivo El Muro Cusco Y Su Resistencia Contra Poder Estatal Y La Censura Del Espacio, Stella Gould

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El Colectivo El Muro Cusco es un colectivo libertario y autogestionado dedicado al apoyo a las luchas sociales y al intercambio de información alternativa. Activo durante los últimos 20 años, El Muro,1 como se le conoce coloquialmente, ha sido un proveedor de la verdad en Cusco, utilizando el arte y la protesta para expresar descontento con las injusticias perpetuadas por el gobierno peruano. Utilizando el muro del Paraninfo Universitario de la UNSAAC ubicado en la Plaza de Armas de Cusco como su centro focal, el Colectivo utiliza el espacio como galería de arte y lugar de exposición, pero también como …

The Role Of Moroccan Street Art In Decolonial Discourse And Binary Deconstruction, Taylor Rokala

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As a country historically subjected to French colonialism and currently the site of a burgeoning street art scene, Morocco is a locus for street art that contributes to the decolonial project and deconstruction of remaining colonial structures left by the French. Drawing from Edward Said’s concept of orientalism, the idea of gaze, and bell hooks’s counter concept of oppositional gaze, this paper seeks to understand how Moroccan street artists use their art to challenge the binary opposition between tradition and modernity constructed during the French Protectorate. I will discuss the theme of temporality, because of street art’s ephemeral nature and …

Representasi Jejak Memori Budaya Lokal Dalam Karya Performance Art Seniman Indonesia, Litya Ainunning Puri, Handriyotopo Handriyotopo, Khoirunnisa Qonita

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This article offers an interpretation of performance artworks that serve as representations of local identity and values in the period of Indonesian new media artists. By emphasizing on local identity, this article seeks to reveal how artists respond to global challenges through artworks while capturing the aesthetics and values prevailing throughout Nusantara (the Indonesian archipelago). Additionally, this research offers an analysis of the timeline and geographic distribution of performers from the standpoint of the growth of new media art. Data were collected using a variety of methods, including observation, interview, and literature review involving both historical archives and literary works. …

Rekonstruksi Sejarah Dalam Kumpulan Puisi Dari Batavia Sampai Jakarta Melalui Pembacaan Jauh Berbasis Korpus, Ananda Bintang Purwaramdhona, Mochamad Irfan Hidayatullah, Lina Meilinawati Rahayu

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

By applying the mixed research methods combining new historicism and digital humanities with AntConc-assisted distant reading techniques, this research aims to explore a reconstruction of Jakarta's history offered in From Batavia to Jakarta (1619–1999), a collection of poems by Zeffry J. Alkatiri. Results show that history can be reconstructed through the physical structure of narrative poetry represented by the dominant usage of pronoun "they" and intra-sentence conjunctions and prepositions such as "and", "in", and "the" instead of licentia poetica which can violate language rules. However, in the structural analysis, AntConc was not able to detect several linguistic aspects such …

Permainan Alegori Dalam Novel O Karya Eka Kurniawan, Indah Fadhilla

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Fables typically attach human attributes to animal characters to convey moral messages and teachings, but a number of modern authors use animal characters in their literary works to criticize current sociocultural phenomena. One famous literary work that contains many forms of allegory about relationships between human and animal characters is O, a novel by Eka Kurniawan. Allegories in O are used to exhibit contradictions between humans and animals. Animal characters are presented as possessing human traits, bringing up the idea that animals can become ideal human beings (the concept of “being human”). Meanwhile, human characters are presented as possessing …

Orang Tionghoa, Perkebunan Gambir, Lada Dan Kontestasi Di Tanjungpinang Abad Ke-19, Zulfa Saumia Zs

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The Chinese have settled in Bintan Island since Zheng He’s great expeditions in the 15^th century. However, large-scale arrivals of the Chinese did not occur until in 1740. They worked as laborers in pepper and gambier plantations that belonged to Buginese nobles. Internal and external changes in the political landscape, as well as land and territorial tenures between the Hokkiens in Tanjungpinang and Teochews in Senggarang, added a new nuance to their roles as middlemen, land owners, and coolies in pepper and gambier plantations. This gave rise to contestation between these two ethnic groups. How did the land tenure …

Perkembangan Musik Dan Budaya Hip-Hop Di Tiongkok: Eksistensi The Rap Of China Di Tengah Ketatnya Sensor, Matsnaa Chumairo, R. Tuty Nur Mutia

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Hip-hop culture and rap music originated from the African-American community that emerged around the 1970s in New York City. Hip-hop started to enter PRC in the 1990s and continues to grow among the younger generation. A hip-hop talent search show titled The Rap of China, released in 2017, became very popular, bringing hip-hop music and culture to the fore. Unfortunately, it must eventually face PRC government’s intervention in its development. This article discusses the influence of Chinese government's censorship policies on the development of hip-hop music and culture in China. This case study was conducted using the historical approach, …

Karakteristik Aksara Pakpak Berdasarkan Sumber Tertulis Di Dairi Dan Pakpak Bharat, Sumatera Utara, Churmatin Nasoichah, Ninny Soesanti Tedjowasono, Tomson Sibarani, Mehammat Br. Karo Sekali, Wahyu Rizky Andhifani, Lolita Refani Lumban Tobing

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The Pakpak ethnic group occupy two areas in North Sumatra, namely Dairi and Pakpak Bharat, and speak a language with its own set of characters called the Pakpak script. This study discusses the Pakpak script characteristics and writing materials, and provides a compiled description of the Pakpak community in the past based on written sources. The purpose of this study is to determine the characteristics of the Pakpak script and provide a historical description of the ethnic group based on written sources. This study uses the exploratory inductive reasoning model. Results show that the Pakpak and Batak scripts share similar …

Praktik Teater Postdramatik Di Indonesia, Afrizal H, Sahrul N, Yusril Yusril

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

The article entitled "Practice of Postdramatic Theater in Indonesia", is an examination of the practice of postdramatic theater in Indonesia in the 1990s to 2000s in Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta, and even West Sumatra. This practice spawned generations that continue to grow and develop through aesthetics based on performance texts, outside of the conventional drama texts that we understand so far. Each theater community, regardless of whether it is postdramatic or not, has carried out an in-depth exploration and elaboration of all possible bodies, texts and artistic materials which are used as the main capital of performances. This study uses qualitative …

Perdagangan Perempuan Indonesia Dalam Situs Pengantin Pesanan: Perspektif Feminisme Sosialis, Wabilia Husnah

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Mail-order bride websites can be easily found in cyberspace. These websites sell Indonesian women to Chinese men as wives. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of women cyber-trafficking in mail-order bride websites, especially the background of mail-order bride websites and their impacts on the victims. This qualitative research used the case study approach and the socialist feminism theory to investigate three mail-order bride websites. This study concludes that the oppression of women on mail-order bride websites is caused by long-standing patriarchy in Indonesia and China reflected in daily practices, cultural manifestations, and literary works in both countries. Capitalism has …

Tradisi Penculikan Pengantin Perempuan Dalam Film Alaa Kachuu: Representasi Ketidaksetaraan Gender Di Kirgizstan, Aprina Luzti Lubis, Mina Elfira

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

This research investigates how two movies, both entitled Ala Kachuu (2018 and 2002), represent ala kachuu, i.e. a tradition of bride kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan. Even though the Kyrgyz government has formally banned this practice since 2016, which is considered as a form of forced marriage, it still exists and is practiced by some Kyrgyz. This research used the qualitative method coupled with the mise-en-scène cinematographic technique. By using Stuart Hall’s representation theory (1997) and Mansour Fakih’s gender inequality theory (2008) as analysis tools, this study concludes that both movies represent ala kachuu as a tradition which promotes gender inequality. …

“Come Think With Me”: Finding Communion In The Liberatory Textual Practices Of Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Jehan L. Roberson

Criticism

Defining text as anything that can be read, self-identified learner and artist Kameelah Janan Rasheed explores reading as radical communion within her multifaceted textual practice. A 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, Rasheed’s work spans vast bodies of knowledge and temporalities to interrogate both the aesthetic and the limits of the text. At times producing collages with letters cut out from books in her own expansive library, and at other times posting scans from various books that are marked up with her rigorous note-taking, Rasheed approaches the text as an invitation to commune with the author in order to collectively arrive at new …

New Commandments, Jacob Sussman

Masters Theses

I reach into the earth, pull out mud-encrusted objects, and recombine them to define new meanings. With every object transposed, the past breaks down; new potentials form. “New Commandments” recombines historical symbolism through an intuitive building, destroying, and merging to reimagine or re-establish meaning.

The work critiques rites of passage, masculinity, and stereotypes by deconstructing how histories, ideologies, and preconceptions form.

As a queer person raised in-between Judaism and Christianity, social preconceptions and religious expectations festered my formation. Our choice is taken away at this moment of conception. To take back autonomy, I reimagine historical, and religious symbolism and transmute …

Postindustrial Playbook++, Maxwell Fertik

Masters Theses

There is no such thing as an undisrupted ecosystem. Every inch of the planet is impacted by industrial development and its chemical legacy has mutated the soil and water. As a response, this thesis is designed to promote abundant over extractive resources and visualize a post-industrial reality. It consists of a series of objects, writing and design research on the relationship of industry and ecosystem.

In many ways it is a playbook++, laying out possible strategies or “plays’’ for making do with what exists around us amid collapse.

Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica)(ي'ڑ*), a plant that grows in the most degraded …

Thingle Things: An Exploration Of The Imperfect, Jesse G. Groom

Masters Theses

I am fascinated by the “imperfect” and ask: What are these so-called flaws? Might they just be misalignments with the plane of expectations which coat our visual processing? The relationship between object and human has grown ever more assuming since the advent of industrial production methods. I posit that the efficiency and profit driven decisions which underly this scale and mode of making have subsequently forced matter into the molds of our whims with little allowance for evidence of disobedience. During the opportunity of my own fabrication practice, however, I can discover new possibilities for the typologies of the things …

Moving At The Speed Of Trust, Sun Ho Lee

Masters Theses

Moving at the Speed of Trust is a workbook of strategies — practices, definitions, and techniques — to nurture community-building in support of inbetweeners who live between power structures and cultures and are often left out. Inbetweeners are those individuals whose lives are in transition through recent immigration or forced translocation from Asia to America.

These strategies revolve around threads of trust: kin, giggles, vulnerability, and shared experience. With these threads, we can question power. We can preserve stories, expand the ways we connect, shift perspectives on what is “standard,” and cultivate a community rooted in understanding. To understand each …

Margins (I Nvr Needed Acceptance From All U Outsiders), Jahi Lendor

Masters Theses

A comedian said, “American pie isn’t made out of apples, it’s made out of whatever you can get your fucking hands on.”1 With that, my work seeks to provide an honest representation of the infinite value of the everydayness and behavior of blackness ranging from trauma to beauty. Various mediums explore culture, class, collective memory, identity, and erasure. While resisting institutional and systemic boundaries between disciplines my practice actively seeks fluidity between media. The work often translates to (social) poetic-bricolage visualizations that combine gestures of assemblage, sculpture, installation, and painting. The work focuses on reflecting on how I see life …

Out In Thin Air, Daiqing Zhang

Masters Theses

My work often takes form in experience-charged installations underscored by phenomenology. The whys and hows behind the work mostly remain unspoken, since I would rather my work speak for itself. This writing project offered me the opportunity to comb through and tell the stories and thoughts that informed the work.

I have built a collection of documentation about the experience of having a sensitivity to moments of wonder in everyday life. These archives recorded sensuous imprints in life composed of mundane phenomena. In the collection there are images/footage of a glimpse of light leaking through cloud crevices; a brush of …

Home. Objects. Transitions., Fei Gao

Masters Theses

As migratory life challenges traditional understandings of "home," can domestic objects, materials, or substitutes transformed into portable art forms soothe migratory anxiety, navigate connections to home, and become alternatives to the ideal home?

This thesis is an investigation of the value of domestic objects as transitional markers of "home" and their ability to foster positive emotional connection among those whose lives are in flux migrating people. Based on British psychiatrist Donald W. Winnicott's research on "Transitional Objects" or "Transitional Phenomena" such objects not only represent "comfort objects" for infants but also foreshadow the many roles assigned by individuals throughout their …

Landscape De/Re-Construction Through Art, Manuel Gonzalez

Masters Theses

Contemporary landscape architecture practice and education primarily focus on ecological and technical interventions. The climate crisis we find ourselves in demands scientifically informed decisions and well-engineered execution of projects, but, more importantly, creativity and innovation.

The fine arts, which were once integral and foundational to design, are today largely unappreciated and appropriated. The spiritual power of Art, Aesthetics, and Beauty, explored at length through art history and theory, are often viewed as indulgent or secondary to execution. The gap between Art & Design has widened. As a result, designers face challenges in fostering in individuals the kind of care and …

The Meaning Of A Choice, Julie-Louise Zeitoun

Masters Theses

If you are disabled or disadvantaged, you will be dismissed and stifled. Few people will actively care for your struggles. As a person with autism, I was deeply fearful of the persecution I had faced throughout my life; it was a fear that followed me with terrifying determination. I desperately wanted to blend into society. So I designed myself to be devoid of any weakness, and productivity was the way I chose to conceal any difficulties I faced. It was a way to measure my success — a way to measure my normalcy.

Standard medical textiles are generic, cumbersome devices. …

Moretheless, Abdelghani Alnahawi

Masters Theses

material investigations becoming questions with interjections

Ai Art: Artists’ Best Friend Or Mortal Enemy?, Ethan Gabrys

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

This paper analyzes the impacts and implications of generative AI software on art and examines the ethics of using such tools. Through the argument that careless use of these tools presents a danger to the art world as they risk devaluing human expression, Gabrys states that “as what it means to be human changes with each generation, new artists express sentiment through their art. Art has the ability to tell us about the human experience.” He concludes that the use of AI tools takes the skill and sentiment of human artists out of the equation, begging the question: if the …

Creating Project Contrast: A Video Game Exploring Consciousness And Qualia, Pierce Papke

Honors Projects

Project Contrast is a video game that explores how the unique traits inherent to video games might engage reflective player responses to qualitative experience. Project Contrast does this through suspension of disbelief, avatar projection, presence, player agency in storytelling, visual perception, functional gameplay, and art. Considering the difficulty in researching qualitative experience due to its subjectivity and circular explanations, I created Project Contrast not to analyze qualia, though that was my original hope. I instead created Project Contrast as an avenue for player self-reflection and learning about qualitative experience. While video games might be just code and art on a …

To Dig A Hole And Fill It Back Up, Jackson Whetstone

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

Abstract:

The socioeconomical philosophy of the United States is still very much related to the Marxist Labor Theory of Value which states that “the economic value of a good or service is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor required to produce it” (Das Kapital, Marx 1.) This philosophy has penetrated the way that we think about art and object, and in turn positions art as a means of transaction, thus limiting art to a form of glorified currency. This Essay will chronicle my art practice, that have led up to two thesis pieces, Trench and Dig …

The Hospitality Of Doubt, Ian Grieve

Art Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses the last two years of research toward a Master of Fine Art in Studio Art. I mainly address my painting practice, but while in the program, I have worked in collage, ceramics, intaglio printmaking, and sculpture. My paintings are thick, multilayered, and often contain ambiguous narratives. The pictures develop through engagement, openness, and response within the work. I seek and embrace connection with viewers of the work. The spectator ‘completes’ the art and enhances or alters the artworks meaning by observing it and applying their individual perspectives. I seek to incorporate a sense of nostalgia and familiarity. …

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

Legends Of Light: Crafting Middle Grade Fantasy In The Tradition Of Catholic Philosophy And Medieval Visual Culture, Bernadette Lamb

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

This essay promotes the writing and illustrating of middle grade literature that mirrors the wonder-inducing experiences of leafing through an illuminated manuscript and stepping into a Gothic cathedral. An examination of Catholic medieval visual culture moves into a discussion on its underlying philosophy and theology, which are profoundly centered on relational healing and the dignity of the human person. Christian writers including St. Pope John Paul II, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Josef Pieper, Madeline L’Engle, Dr. Bob Schuchts, Makoto Fujimura, and Andrew Peterson inform an exploration of mercy, forgiveness, and love as self-gift in the context of illustration and storytelling …